Heat ask fans to sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’

Basketball: For the Miami Heat, one national-anthem performer will not be enough tonight.

They want thousands.

Breaking from tradition, the Heat will not have anyone brought in to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Game 2 of their Eastern Conference playoff series with the Boston Celtics tonight. Instead, the Heat are encouraging fans to be the singers, making that change less than one day following the announcement that Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan.

Various patriotic tributes took place at U.S. sporting events on Monday.

Associated Press

Kings to stay for at least one year

Basketball: The Kings and the NBA gave Sacramento one last chance to prove it deserves to be an NBA city.

Now it’s up to Mayor Kevin Johnson and the business community to come up with a viable plan for a new arena after so many failed attempts in the past.

The decision to keep the team in Sacramento rather than apply for relocation to Anaheim, Calif., is only temporary. It is clear that the team will leave after next season if an arena plan is not in place.

Associated Press

NFL asks for court support

Labor: The NFL filed an 18-page brief with the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, arguing that the lockout should remain on hold permanently while appeals play out.

The appeals court put U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson’s order lifting the 45-day lockout on hold temporarily last week. The owners reinstated the lockout a few hours later, and they want a more permanent stay of Nelson’s order so they can argue that it should be overturned altogether.